Google Ads captures demand that already exists; LinkedIn Ads creates demand among people who have not started looking. That is the whole comparison, and it explains why the cost figures look so lopsided: across the Australian B2B accounts we audit, LinkedIn produces leads at roughly two to four times the cost per lead of Google Search, while delivering noticeably better fit with the ideal customer profile. If your category has search volume, Google is almost always the correct first channel. LinkedIn earns its place second, and only above a real budget threshold.
Quick reference:
- Google Ads B2B CPC in Australia: $9–45 AUD depending on how commercial the term is
- LinkedIn Ads CPC in Australia: $8–16 AUD, with sponsored content typically $10–14 AUD
- Cost per qualified lead: Google $300–900 AUD; LinkedIn $700–2,500 AUD in the same categories
- LinkedIn minimum practical budget: around $4,000 AUD per month before the data means anything
- LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms convert 3–5x better than sending traffic to a landing page, at lower intent
- The decision rule: search volume exists, start with Google; no search volume for the problem you solve, LinkedIn is the only option
What is the actual difference between the two channels?
The difference is where the intent lives, and every cost difference follows from it.
On Google, the user tells you what they want. They typed “field service software for electricians”, so you know the category, often the vertical, and sometimes the budget stage. What you do not know is who they are: Google offers no native firmographic targeting, so you cannot say “only show this to operations directors at companies with 50–500 employees”.
On LinkedIn, you know exactly who they are and nothing about what they want right now. You can target by job title, seniority, company size, industry, skills, and even specific named accounts, as LinkedIn’s own targeting documentation sets out. What you cannot do is know whether that person is evaluating anything at all. Most of the time they are not.
This is why cost per lead diverges so sharply while lead quality moves in the opposite direction. Google gives you cheap leads with unreliable fit; LinkedIn gives you expensive leads with reliable fit. Neither is better in the abstract.
What do Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads cost in Australia?
Both are expensive channels in the Australian B2B market, but the cost is structured differently.
Google Ads, based on the B2B accounts we manage and audit:
- Head category terms: $18–45 AUD per click
- Category plus vertical qualifier: $9–22 AUD
- Competitor and alternative terms: $5–15 AUD
- Landing page conversion rates of 2–5% on well-built pages
- Resulting cost per raw lead: $200–900 AUD, cost per qualified lead $300–900 AUD once you filter
LinkedIn Ads, same account base:
- Sponsored content CPC: $10–14 AUD, up to $16 AUD for tightly targeted senior audiences
- CPM buying: $60–110 AUD per thousand impressions
- Lead Gen Form conversion rates of 8–15%, against 1–3% when sending to a landing page
- Resulting cost per raw lead: $150–400 AUD, but cost per qualified lead $700–2,500 AUD
That last pair of numbers is the one people misread. LinkedIn’s raw cost per lead often looks competitive or better than Google’s, because Lead Gen Forms pre-fill from the user’s profile and convert extremely well. The qualification rate is what collapses: a pre-filled form takes two taps and no commitment, so a large share of those leads were mildly curious rather than in market. Judging LinkedIn on raw CPL is the single most common way B2B teams talk themselves into overspending on it.
When should you choose Google Ads first?
In most cases, and the test is simple: does anyone search for the problem you solve?
Choose Google first when your category has established search volume. CRM, accounting software, project management, payroll, field service, cybersecurity. People know these categories exist and actively look for them. Paying to interrupt someone on LinkedIn when they would have searched for you next Tuesday is expensive.
Choose Google first when your budget is under $6,000 AUD per month. LinkedIn at $3,000 AUD per month produces too few conversions to optimise against and too small a sample to judge. That budget on Google, concentrated on competitor and long-tail vertical terms, produces enough volume to learn something.
Choose Google first when you need pipeline this quarter. Search converts on a shorter cycle because the buyer is already moving. LinkedIn’s contribution is real but slower and harder to attribute.
Choose Google first when your sales team needs proof the channel works. Nothing kills a paid programme faster than six months of LinkedIn spend with an attribution argument at the end of it.
In practice this means starting on Search with competitor and long-tail vertical terms, tight negative keyword lists, and a landing page built for the specific query rather than a generic homepage. Our guide to landing page optimisation covers what B2B buyers need to see before they will fill in a form.
The corollary matters too. If nobody searches for what you do, because the category is genuinely new or the problem is one buyers do not know they have, Google Search has nothing to capture and LinkedIn becomes the only sensible option.
When is LinkedIn the better choice?
LinkedIn wins in a narrower set of circumstances than its own marketing suggests, but in those circumstances it wins clearly.
Very high contract values. Above roughly $50,000 AUD annual contract value, a $2,000 AUD cost per qualified lead is fine. The maths that makes LinkedIn look expensive stops mattering when a single deal pays for a quarter of spend.
Named-account targeting. If your sales team has a list of 200 target accounts, LinkedIn can serve those specific companies and job titles. Google cannot do this natively. For account-based programmes this is not a nice-to-have, it is the entire mechanism.
Narrow, hard-to-search roles. If your buyer is a clinical trial coordinator or a fleet compliance manager, category search volume may be a few hundred queries a month nationally. LinkedIn can reach several thousand of exactly those people.
Category creation. New categories have no search demand by definition. You cannot capture searches that nobody performs.
Recruitment-adjacent and employer-brand offers. LinkedIn’s context suits these in a way Google’s does not.
How do you run both channels together?
The version that works treats LinkedIn as the demand generator and Google as the closer, with data moving between them.
Sequence, do not split. Run LinkedIn to your ICP with content that frames the problem, not a demo request. Then capture the resulting branded and category searches on Google. The measurable signal that this is working is branded search volume rising four to eight weeks into LinkedIn spend. If it does not move, LinkedIn is not generating demand, it is generating impressions.
Retarget across channels. Push your LinkedIn engagers into Google via Customer Match and remarketing where you have the email data, and retarget your Google site visitors on LinkedIn where you have the volume.
Attribute honestly or not at all. Last-click will credit Google for pipeline LinkedIn created, and you will cut the channel that was doing the upstream work. At minimum, run a self-reported “how did you hear about us” field on the form and compare it against your analytics attribution. The gap between them is the size of your measurement problem.
Feed both back into one CRM view. The only comparison worth making is cost per qualified opportunity by original source, which means offline conversion import on the Google side and equivalent source tagging on LinkedIn.
What budget do you need for each?
The thresholds are different enough that budget alone often makes the decision for you.
Google Ads: a workable floor is around $2,500 AUD per month if you start on competitor, alternative and long-tail vertical terms. Head category terms need closer to $6,000 AUD per month before the volume supports Smart Bidding. Model your own figures with our budget calculator.
LinkedIn Ads: the platform’s own minimums are low, roughly $10 AUD per day per campaign, but that is not the real floor. To gather enough conversions for meaningful optimisation across a couple of audiences and creatives, you need around $4,000 AUD per month. Below that you are running an underpowered test whose result you will not be able to trust either way.
Running both therefore realistically starts at $10,000 AUD per month combined. Below that, splitting budget across two channels means neither gets enough data. Concentrate.
Which produces better lead quality?
LinkedIn produces better ICP fit; Google produces better intent. Those are not the same thing, and which one matters more depends on your sales motion.
If your sales team can create demand in a conversation, and the constraint is getting in front of the right person at all, LinkedIn’s fit advantage is worth paying for. If your sales team converts well on inbound but struggles to warm up cold interest, Google’s intent advantage is worth more.
There is a measurable version of this question. Take the last hundred closed-won deals and check which channel first touched each one. Then take the last hundred closed-lost-at-first-call and do the same. Most B2B teams discover that one channel supplies most of the wins and the other supplies most of the wasted sales time, and the answer is frequently not what the cost-per-lead dashboard suggested. This is the same reasoning we apply when comparing Google Ads and Meta Ads for Australian businesses: channel comparisons made on cost per lead are almost always wrong.
Frequently asked questions
Is LinkedIn Ads more expensive than Google Ads? Per click they are comparable in Australia, with LinkedIn at $8–16 AUD and Google B2B terms at $9–45 AUD. Per qualified lead LinkedIn is substantially more expensive: $700–2,500 AUD against $300–900 AUD for Google in the same categories. LinkedIn’s raw cost per lead can look cheaper because Lead Gen Forms convert at 8–15%, but the qualification rate on those leads is much lower, so the comparison only means something after your sales team has filtered them.
Should a B2B startup start with Google Ads or LinkedIn? Google, in almost every case where the category has search volume. It converts on a shorter cycle, costs less per qualified lead, and produces evidence faster, which matters when the programme is still proving itself. The exception is genuine category creation: if nobody searches for the problem you solve, Google Search has nothing to capture and LinkedIn is the only viable option.
How much do LinkedIn Ads cost in Australia? Sponsored content runs $10–14 AUD per click for most B2B audiences, rising to about $16 AUD for tightly targeted senior or niche roles. CPM buying sits at $60–110 AUD per thousand impressions. The practical monthly budget floor is around $4,000 AUD, well above LinkedIn’s technical minimum, because below that you cannot gather enough conversions across audiences and creatives to optimise against.
Do LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms produce good leads? They produce a lot of leads at a low raw cost and a high proportion of them are not in market. The form pre-fills from the user’s profile, so submitting takes two taps and signals very little commitment. They are useful for content offers and list building at the top of the funnel. For demo requests on a high-value product, sending traffic to a landing page produces fewer, better leads.
Can I target specific companies with Google Ads? Not natively in the way LinkedIn does. Google has no firmographic targeting layer, so you cannot restrict a campaign to a named account list by company attributes. The closest workarounds are Customer Match lists built from contacts you already hold, and IP-based targeting through third-party tools, both of which are considerably less precise than LinkedIn’s account targeting. For account-based programmes, this is the strongest argument for LinkedIn.
How do I know if LinkedIn Ads are actually working? Watch branded and category search volume in Google Search Console and Google Ads four to eight weeks after LinkedIn spend starts. If LinkedIn is genuinely generating demand, more people will start searching for you by name or for your category. If those numbers stay flat while LinkedIn reports impressions and clicks, you are buying reach rather than creating demand, and the spend is not doing what the channel is supposed to do.
The comparison people want is a winner, and there is not one. Google Ads is the correct default for Australian B2B because it is cheaper per qualified opportunity and it converts faster, and it stops being the correct default in exactly two situations: when nobody searches for what you sell, and when you need to reach named accounts rather than categories.
If you are running both and cannot say which one is producing pipeline rather than leads, that is a measurement problem rather than a channel problem. Get in touch and we will look at what your closed-won deals actually touched first.